One Hot Mess

Friday, December 9, 2016

This quote from writer Naomi Shulman made me think about niceness, kindness, bravery, and the differences and intersections between those words and concepts.

I've come to realize and accept that I am not a nice person, nor do I want to be a nice person. Nice is defined as "pleasant, agreeable, and satisfactory." I can be nice at times, I suppose, but it's certainly not my default setting to be pleasant, agreeable, or satisfactory. In fact, it's often my instinct to be decidedly unpleasant, disagreeable, and unsatisfactory (depending on who I'm interacting with). "Nice" sounds perilously close to boring, or like the result of a frontal lobe lobotomy or something.

I do, however, like to think I am kind. Kind is distinctly different from nice. Kind is "having or showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature." I like to think I manifest those qualities. I don't think I have a perfect track record, but I try to be kind every day. More to the point, I strive to be brave, which is defined as "ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage."

I'm lucky and grateful that my life has thus far been relatively devoid of trauma and challenges I would consider truly difficult. I had two loving (if flawed) human beings for parents. I had what I needed then, and I have what I need now. My kids are great people; they scare me with their vulnerability and my own, but they're great people. I have never been a solider, but one hour of witnessing 9/11 gave me an entirely new perspective on the meaning of "bravery" and trauma soldiers endure. That's a level of bravery I will never know, though I wonder if my children will.

Anyway, now feels like the time to reaffirm that it's okay not to be nice.

Sometimes that means having awkward, unpleasant, difficult interactions and conversations. It means being forced to defend your beliefs to people who are challenging them in ways both subtle and confrontational.

It means being brave enough to accept the possible consequences of the gamble you make when you speak your mind. It means taking verbal criticism or abuse, or worse, and not letting that do what it's meant to do, which is to shut you up and shut you down.

But I am fine with that. I am fine with not being nice, as long as I can be both kind and brave whenever the time comes to be either.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Lots of women are looking for that magic workout that will be quick, easy, and get results fast--especially in the morning when our metabolism is at peak levels for exercise. But what most women don't realize is that it's hella easier to start doing those workouts, stop to think for a second, and then say to your bae, "you know what, fuck it, I'ma just sit on your face instead, m'kay?"Downward-Facing Dog: You could get into a position that makes you look and feel like someone or something is going to eff you in the no-no, all in the hopes that your ass will look toned as a result. OR, you can turn the tables on that power dynamic and say, "know what, babe? I'ma just grab a quick moustache ride right now, k?"Jumping Jacks: Get your heart racing with this old school calisthenic! You'll feel like Olivia Newton John doing these right at your bedside, and after you do one or two you can just kick your man in the ribs gently but with purpose and be like, "Actually, I'm just gonna get my workout in by humping your head instead. S'that cool witchoo?"Wall Sits: Tighten your thighs right there on the wall of your bedroom with 40 seconds of wall-sitting, or actually fuck it, just put dudebro's face in a thigh vice, check to see if he's breathing every once in awhile, and kill two birds with one stone.Jog-in-Place: Put on a sports bra and run in place like a total asshole for a few seconds, before deciding that no, that's actually stupid and makes your boobs hurt, so sorry, your man is just gonna have to eat poon for breakfast.Push-Ups: A handful of push-ups every morning will tone your upper body all while making you tell your guy, "actually, I'm taking a hard pass on these push-ups, so your face is gonna hafta take a hard pass up in here, whaddya say?"

1. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Unless you're part of both the solution and the problem, in which case your name is Hot Toddy.

2. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor, unless the thing that's in neutral is your car, the situation of injustice is your icy driveway, and the oppressor is gravity. Gravity is a bitch.

3. Be the moose you wish to see eating a rotting jack-o'-lantern off your neighbor's porch in the world.

4. It always seems impossible until it's done, but if the "it" is chopping and collecting (and collecting and chopping) wood for your wood stove, it actually is impossible for that to ever be done, so forget about it.

5. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and by "injustice" I mean garbage and by "justice" I mean bears, and by "everywhere" I mean my deck, even in November somehow.

6. Well behaved women seldom make history, but Alaskan women often make some pretty kick-ass jam and pancakes out of all those berries in their chest freezer and will bring that shit to a potluck if you're lucky.

7. Change happens when you finally get that remote-starter and brand new snow tires for your truck that you've always wanted.

8. The arc of the Alaskan Winter is long, but it bends toward enough miles to go to Maui near the end of February if you play your cards right and decide not to waste time and money expanding your cable TV package after all.

9. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a bunch of rowdy drunk people cheering on mushers in Willow all the way up the Skwentna.

10. Don't count the missed approaches, make the missed approaches count for vouchers.

11. How we spend our days is how we spend our lives, so it's a good thing there are only about 120 days a year in which we almost break every bone in our body slipping on black ice on the way to the Post Office.

12. It's better to light a candle than curse the outrageous price of heating oil despite the allegedly tanking oil economy, just saying.

You might have heard that Trump tapped wrestling magnate Linda McMahon to lead the Small Business Administration. PEOTUS assures 'Murica that McMahon will "bring back our jobs and roll back the burdensome regulations that are hurting our middle class." McMahon, CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., (f/k/a/ WWF) gave lots of money to Trump and raised an entire generation of little boys to collect Hulk Hogan and Jake the Snake action figures, dress up in polyester capes, and jump on each other in their parents' basements until someone, inevitably, ended up in a cast. So what other pro wrestlers is Trump considering for cabinet posts? Here's a preliminary list of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice by setting aside their famous "feuds" to serve the American Public in positions befitting their names:

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Oh hello! I don't know who you are/your/you're, but I'm guessing you don't know the difference between your and you're. You might even have called something fowl language when you meant to say foul language, and it's also possible you said undo when you meant undue. Regardless, or irregardless (?), thanks in advance for reading and believing every word I write/right/rite/wright here. Now to the matter at hand: I have some opinions that I would like you to disprove, because we don't know for a fact that my opinions are not facts, do we? No. We do not. And in turn we have no idea whether those facts are not true. So.Now it will be your job to prove they are not true, whaddya say? This is a fun game that defies all logic, reason, and critical thinking, not to mention spelling and grammar. But welp, that's where we are these days, so let's get started, shall we?1. There is a compound of Islamic terrorist bacteria living and thriving in feminists' vaginas: If it's one thing you can't trust, it's a feminist, especially the part of a feminist that's made out of vagina. And if it's another thing you can't trust, it's a Muslim. If it's a third thing you can't trust, it's bacteria. So what happens when they all join forces? THE END OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, MY FRIENDS, THAT'S WHAT. Covert Russian biologists embedded at the CDC have been sworn to secrecy on this, but I have the goods, which have been Wiki-leaked onto a Maxipad by Julian Assange. There is a well-known, intravaginal compound of Islamic terrorist bacteria growing and thriving in feminists' vaginas all over the country and it won't be long before they evolve to impose Sharia law, make your grandma wear a Hijab to her weekly cribbage game with the girls, and spread computer viruses to every website and email address that has the words "freedom" or "eagle" in it. MARK MY WORDS: YOU HEARD IT HERE/HERD IT HEAR FIRST.2. Leftist social justice warriors (SJWs) have colluded with Beyonce, Jay-Z, and the military to create hurricanes and droughts in order to enrich Jewish climate scientists and award them lucrative government contracts: You should ask yourself who stands to profit from the global warming hoax. The Styrofoam snow industry surely has a lot to gain, but that's just the tip of the iceberg (no pun intended). Who is REALLY winning here? FOLLOW THE MONEY. If you do, you will see that the trail of gold doubloons ends, of COURSE, with THE JEWS. The Jews are being underwritten by Beyonce and Jay-Z, who are funneling massive quantities of liquid assets earned on designer jeans and basketball straight to government contractors who generate droughts and hurricanes using top-secret military equipment in order to garner a profit for the climate change industry, again populated almost exclusively by Jewish scientists. HELLO?! ALBERT EINSTEIN!? Who invented the Atom Bomb? And JONAS SALK?! Mad scientist-creator of the dreaded Polio vaccine that gave everyone autism?! There is precedent for this, people. There. Is. Precedent. CAN YOU SAY THERE'S NOT? NO? I DIDN'T THINK SO!3. The energy from stupidity-based rage is being harnessed by aliens to create an alternative fuel source: Ever since the election, it's common to see people look at their phones and scream at the sheer stupidity of everything. But that's a red herring, because the government does not want you to know that while you're taking selfies with your cat and sharing articles from Medium and Vox in your libtarded, elitist echo chamber, CIA operatives are watching your every move through your cell phone camera as they conspire against you in cahoots with aliens at Area 51. So by all means, keep sharing articles and hitting that like button! And what are they doing, EXACTLY? I'll tell you what. They are harnessing the energy from your stupidity-based rage into an alternative fuel that will propel a fleet of rocket ships to Mars for only the most elite Wall Street bankers to escape when the planet finally succumbs to nuclear warfare launched by the same inside-jobbers responsible for Sandy Hook and 9/11. SHOW ME A SINGLE FACT TO DISPROVE THIS.4. Pizza outside of New York City and Chicago really is as terrible as everyone says: Here's what they don't want you to know about "pizzagate." The guy who was arrested for bringing an AR-15 into a Washington D.C. pizzeria wasn't actually trying to bust up the Clinton-based pedophilia ring that was so obviously afoot in the basement between the sacks of flour and the extra bags of shredded 1% low fat mozzarella. He was trying to take a stance against shitty pizza, the very worst of which can be found in Benghazi and most of the Western United States, especially Idaho. GO AHEAD. PROVE ME WRONG. ANY CRITICAL THINKING READER WILL FAIL TO DO SO.God Bless America!*DISCLAIMER: This entire post is satirical. Our collective stupidity, gullibility, and utter void of critical thinking skills have reached the level of fucking DERP-saturation where I have to say that explicitly, I guess.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

I am being totally serious. I saw this poster in a few local businesses downtown, and it made me think about Juneau in relationship to the rest of the State.

Juneau gets a bad rap in Alaska, unfairly in my opinion. Everyone loves to knock Juneau for its crappy weather, its isolated capital status, and its attempts at "leftist" (or some might say, inclusive and kind) social ambitions and initiatives. Many residents of other areas of the State (where I have lived) love to malign Juneau as a useless island of bloated state government, overpaid state workers, and "leftist libtards," (which I think is a new "un-PC" portmanteau of "liberal" and "retarded" that I've seen on social media lately).

Most of Alaska would be happy to see Juneau and at least half the people in it drop right off the map and into the ocean forever.

That's fine, but I honestly don't understand why the message on this sign is so bad. It's not forcing anyone to get gay married or say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. Clearly, it's been prompted by the indisputable hate incidents the recent presidential election has inspired across the country directed at Muslims, women, LGBTQ people, Jews, and others like me who are not white, Christian men.

It's affirmatively saying that stuff is not okay, and to my mind that is not a bad thing. To be clear, I don't know that this specific sign is currently getting shit from anyone,* but I do know lots of folks are fundamentally opposed to the general concept of "shoving" equality "down people's throats," which is arguably what this sign is doing.

When I lived in "real Alaska," I found it to be isolating and lonely precisely because this message did not exist in my own personal experience. I wasn't part of a church and therefore it wasn't easy to make friends. I tried to find community, but I felt lonely and ultimately unwelcome. You could find religious tracts everywhere from the dentist to the donut shop, but never a sign like this. Having been born and raised in "the bubble" of New York City, I told myself that living among "real Americans" would be an education. And although I did make a few friends, overall it was an education in loneliness.

Now I know I'm as American as anyone else.

I don't understand why the overall message of this sign and others like it is controversial. It's inclusive and kind. Why is that a bad thing?

Wait, don't answer that.

Here come the comments where people write things they would never say to my face. Where they call me names, and tell me I'm a dumb, naive, reprehensible cunt who belongs with the rest of the Kumbaya pussies down in Juneau, in my elitist bloated government bubble with all my PC libtard friends. Good riddance, don't let the door hit ya where the Good Lord split ya and all that. They'll do it now, they've done it before: If it's three things I can count on in this life, it's death, taxes, and trolls.

So I saved the latter some trouble.

And you know what? I'm totally and completely cool with being called a PC pussy libtard over a sign like this. As long as I live--and no matter where I live--I will never take issue with its message.

*Correction/Update/Note: An attentive reader pointed out that this sign was created by Anchorage activists. So, I hereby place both credit and blame where it's due. Full disclosure, I have never lived in Anchorage. Also, another attentive reader pointed out that this sign is in fact and wholly unsurprisingly getting shit, and plenty of it. See comments (or don't) on the above-linked ADN article.

President-Elect Trump moved to solidify his cabinet this week, naming former rival Ben Carson--whose spokesperson said "he has no government experience" and "has never run a federal agency"--as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.That leaves fewer options for Rudy Giuliani, the wee, pugnacious, Chicklet-grilled Trump loyalist who was a halfway decent human being in public for 24 hours on 9/11/01 through 9/12/01 during his stint as the Mayor of New York City. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Giuliani could often be found spitting into microphones while almost bursting a blood vessel in his forehead to the point of stroke, so naturally his name has been floated as a candidate for Secretary of State or Director of National Intelligence. However, people close to the Trump transition team have indicated that talks are underway to appoint Giuliani Secretary of C.H.U.D., the agency in charge of the violent swarm of Cannibalistic Underground Humanoid Dwellers who have thrived in New York City's sewer system since 1984, and who were made famous by Andrew Bonime's eponymous documentary about them.The film, titled simply "C.H.U.D," chronicles the "homeless" population that Giuliani was so attentive to as mayor, and the intrepid police officers who discovered that the C.H.U.D. were not mere "squeegee men"--(i.e. homeless people who would approach your car windshield with a dirty mop and demand money, and who Rudy Giuliani famously eradicated at the beginning of his administration)--but rather former humans that "have been mutated by radioactive, chemical toxic waste into hideous flesh-eating creatures that prey on the homeless who live underground.""The President-Elect is seriously considering Giuliani for Secretary of C.H.U.D.," said a Trump source who asked to remain anonymous, due to the confidential nature of the talks. "Obviously, Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani share common roots in New York City," the source continued. Giuliani, 72, is famously familiar with the sewer systems and the population of cannibalistic monsters that reside there, having come from a humble C.H.U.D. background himself. "His knowledge of C.H.U.D. policy is as good, or better, than anybody the President-Elect is talking to," the source continued.Giuliani honed his law and order reputation by requiring permits for picnics, arresting people for smoking joints, perfecting the art of the "perp walk," and allowing black men to be tortured in police custody through anal penetration with broomsticks.It is unclear at this point whether Giuliani will necessarily have time to undertake the duties of C.H.U.D. Secretary, however, as he is currently on location filming a sequel to the 1993 biopic "Rudy" about an underdog football player who walked onto the Notre Dame football team. Although Giuliani has no known relationship to Notre Dame and plays golf as opposed to football, he is reportedly consulting (for a small fee of $1,000 an hour) on the new project because he really loves that "RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!" chant.